This presentation was delivered at the 2012 NEURISA Ignite Spatial Vermont event held in Montpelier, VT. http://www.neurisa.org/events?eventId=452847&EventViewMode=EventDetails

1. Evaluating Visual Decay Within the Chinchorro
Landscape, Northern Chile
John G. Van Hoesen
Green Mountain College

2. N
Santoro et al. 2005

3. Mina
Macarena
Maestranza
Morro

6. Developed Nine indices
• Line of sight
• Depth of invisibility
• Distance zones
• Angle of incidence
• Angle of depression
• Angle of Elevation
• Light
• Depth & texture gradient
• Temporal

10. 60x 520x 1100x
Mattioli (2008)
Higuchi (1983), pg. 14

12. Distance Classification Maestranza Mina Macarena Morro
Near Distance: Class 1 96 30 87
Near Distance: Class 2 217 91 195
Near Distance: Class 3 263 161 237
Middle Distance: Class 4 1,011 898 910
Middle Distance: Class 5 2,484 2,714 2,236
Middle Distance: Class 6 8,249 2,385 7,424
Far Distance 67,187 67,724 60,468
Total Area (m2) 79,506 74,003 71,555

13. Fisher (1994), p. 165
WHERE:
μ = fuzzy membership
d = distance from viewpoint
b1 = maximum distance from viewpoint of clear visibility – (1km)
b2 = distance from viewpoint at which visibility drops to 50% – (2km)

16. Optimum
Angle of
elevation
8-10°
Optimum
Angle of
depression
Higuchi (1983), pg. 40

17. References
• Arriaza, B., Standen, V., Belmonte, E. & Nails, F. (2001) The peopling of the Arica
coast during the preceramic: a preliminary view, Chungará, 33 (1), pp. 31-36.
• Fisher, P. (1994) Probable and fuzzy models of the viewshed operation, in: Worboys,
M. (Ed.) Innovations in GIS, pp. 161-175 (London: Taylor and Francis).
• Higuchi, T. (1983) The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscapes. Ed. MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA, 1a ed., 232 p.
• Mattioli, T. (2008) Landscape analysis of a sample of rock-art sites in central Italy. In
A. Posluschny, K. Lambers and I. Herzog (eds). Layers of Perception. Proceedings
of the 35th International Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative
Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Berlin, Germany, April 2–6, 2007. Kolloquien zur Vor-
und Frühgeschichte, Vol. 10. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH.
• Santoro, C., Arriaza, B, Standen, V. & Marquet, P. (2005) People of the Coastal
Atacama Desert Living Between Sand Dunes and Waves of the Pacific Ocean, in:
Veth, P., Smith, M., Hiscock, P. (Ed.) Desert Peoples, Archaeological Perspectives,
pp. 243- 260. (New Jersey: Blackwell Publishing).